www.REBusinessOnline.com October 2021 • Volume 22, Issue 7 ATLANTA RETAIL IS EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS By John Nelson As new jobs are created in the metro area, retail developers and investors are actively setting down roots to take part in Atlanta's growth story. A tlanta’s retail recovery is tak-ing shape amid a time when the city is transforming into a des-tination for corporate relocations and expansions. Microsoft made headlines locally in February when it purchased 90 acres on the west side of town near Westside Park, Atlanta’s largest park and home to the Bellwood Quarry. The tech giant plans to build a new office campus and data centers at the site. Microsoft also recently signed a 523,000-square-foot office lease to an-chor a new tower within the Atlantic Station development in West Mid-town. Other tech firms such as Google, Airbnb, Zillow, Amazon and Carva-na are also expanding their presence in Atlanta to capture the local talent graduating from Georgia Tech and other area colleges, as well as to capi-talize on the city’s lower costs of living and doing business. Other companies that are moving headquarters or ex-The tenant mix at Atlanta Dairies includes Three Taverns Imaginarium, Wonderkid Diner, Dairies Cold Brew Bar, Young Blood, City Champion, Paradiso Plant Shop and Proper Wax. panding within the city include Visa, Papa John’s Pizza, Norfolk Southern, Chicken Salad Chick and Deluxe Corp. “The city has always done a good job of bringing in new headquar-ters like Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, among others,” says Greg Eisenman, senior director of Franklin Street’s At-lanta office. “The fact that we have all these major tech companies looking to invest here, all of that gets retailers excited and it gets employees excited and makes them say, ‘Maybe I should move to Atlanta.’ Whenever we go out and try and develop new business, we’re almost always met by excite-ment about the growth of this market.” “All these companies that want to come to the East Coast, Atlanta is No. 1 or 2 on their list for having an East Coast headquarters, especially if they’re a technology company,” adds Pierce Mayson, managing principal of SRS Real Estate Partners and co-leader of the firm’s Investment Properties Group in Atlanta. The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta metropolitan statistical area (MSA) posted an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent in August, which is a 140-ba-sis point improvement from just two see ATLANTA, page 26 LIFE SCIENCES DEMAND TAKES OFF IN TRIANGLE By Julia Sanders ot only did the COVID-19 pan-demic spur on the need for more hospitals and medical professionals nationwide, but it also increased the demand for life sciences facilities and research. The life scienc-es sector comprises companies from multiple disciplines including phar-maceuticals, medical device manufac-turing and biotech. From a real estate perspective, life sciences is a hybrid between office and industrial that often includes laboratories, meeting Raleigh-Durham's legacy industry garners national attention, thanks in part to COVID-19 pandemic. N rooms and research and development (R&D) space. Across all major markets in the United States, demand for laboratory and R&D properties increased by 34 percent since the middle of 2020, ac-cording to CBRE’s U.S. Life Sciences 2021 report. The report also found that from April 2014 to 2021 there was a 79 percent increase in biotech and R&D employment in the United States. The life sciences industry has been booming the past few years in the Raleigh-Durham area. CBRE’s report ranked Raleigh-Durham as the No. 8 U.S. Life Sciences Cluster for the first quarter of 2021, the highest ranking among Southeastern cities. Boston-Cambridge ranked first, Chicago sec-ond and Denver-Boulder third. According to Cushman & Wake-field’s 2021 Life Science on the Rise re-port, Raleigh-Durham houses over 600 life sciences companies, including global players such as pharmaceutical heavyweight Pfizer; Labcorp, a clini-cal laboratory firm; and Novo Nord-isk, a pharmaceutical company. Although booming recently, life sci-ences is a legacy industry for Raleigh-Durham with deep roots that are de-cades in the making. Lee Clyburn, the executive vice president of investor leasing at CBRE | Raleigh, says the Research Triangle Park (RTP) has been a landing spot for life sciences companies for over 60 years. see LIFE SCIENCES, page 29 INSIDE THIS ISSUE Amazon to open new delivery centers and a career center across the Mid-Atlantic page 14 New Orleans Market Highlights pages 18-20 Atlanta Market Highlights pages 21-24 Does your property tax assessment reflect COVID-19? page 25
Southeast Real Estate Business October 2021: Page 1
